He'll fly high and wide -- just not upside down

NASHUA -- Peggy Kiefer of Chelmsford is prouder than ever of her grandson, Kiefer Savoie, these days, and not just because the Nashua High School North junior earned his pilot's license on his 17th birthday in October.

Savoie, who was named after his grandmother by his parents, Karen and Roland Savoie, has already somehow managed to get started on his own career path -- one very different from his father's CPA business -- all while maintaining National Honor Society grades and teaching a class weekly as an instructor of remote-controlled airplanes at a charter school in Nashua.

Let the manifest note that the personality of the aspiring teen aeronautical engineer and military-academy pilot could not be any different from that of William "Whip" Whitaker's, the fictional commercial-airline captain portrayed, partly upside down, by actor Denzel Washington in the 2012 movie Flight.

Kiefer Savoie of Nashua received his pilot's license on his 17th birthday in October. And for the record, he says he's not brave. "In the back of my mind, I am always afraid of the engine dying or something like that. I try not to show it to anyone, but the thought is always back there." Courtesy photos

A: When I was younger, I lived next to a hobby store. I used to drive the remote-controlled cars, then went to the RC boats, and next came the airplanes. In seventh grade, I started getting really interested in remote-controlled planes. I thought, 'wow, this is really cool, I think I should go full-scale.' I waited until I was 16 before I took my first lessons.

Q: How does the son of a certified public accountant get a pilot's career off the ground?

A: I met Dennis Warner, my first flight instructor, at a pilot shop that used to operate out of Nashua Airport called Wings. They had a Cessna 152, two-seater, basic trainer, and that's what I learned in.

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After they shut down the store and went away, I thought, 'well, I guess I'm done flying because I don't have an airplane to rent.' Then I went over to Harvest Aviation at Nashua Airport, and they also had a Cessna 152. So my next instructor, Scott Wharem, took me up to my first solo flight on Sunday, Feb. 5, 2012.

Q: You got your pilot's license on the first day legally possible, at 17, but is what your father says true, that you recently took a personality test and decided not to check the box that read, "I'm brave?"

A: I do feel comfortable in the air, except in the back of my mind, I am always afraid of the engine dying or something like that. I try not to show it to anyone, but the thought is always back there. Basically, you never want to get overly cocky when you're flying. I want to be over-cautious, if anything. I keep a book with me so that when I'm bored and have a spare minute, I can study emergency procedures. I'm really focused when I read that stuff. It just really gets in my head.

Q: You do know that whenever the elevator rudder on the plane's tail gets stuck, you have to roll and fly upside down for miles, about a hundred feet off the ground, then roll it right-side-up again, clip the steeple of a church, and glide to a crash-landing in an open field, right?

A: Yes, I did see Flight. It was definitely a good movie, but once they flew it upside down, I just said, "All right, that's pretty much Hollywood." It was a stretch. The main thing I questioned is, if I took my trainer and flew it upside down for a while, there's no way for the fuel to get to the engine. They don't design jets like that.

Q: What is your favorite flight-related movie ever?

A: Red Tails. I've watched that one many times. I especially like the dogfights. Guys my age in life-or-death air battles. Crazy. And absolutely amazing.

Q: How about all the stories about famous people perishing in small-airplane crashes, like Roy Orbison, John Denver and John F. Kennedy Jr.?

A: When I tell people that, say, I'm going to fly to Cape Cod, that (JFK Jr.'s death) is the number-one thing people bring up and ask me about. "Won't that happen to you? Aren't you scared about that?" To deal with that (fear), I'm working on my instrument-flight-rules training right now, learning to fly in really bad weather -- clouds, fog.

Q: Any pilot heroes?

A: Definitely Chuck Yeager. And Rob Holland, a local pilot from Nashua, an aerobatics pilot who has won national awards and travels the world competing. He performed at Ribfest last summer, behind the Budweiser plant (in Merrimack, N.H.). During the Ribfest air show, my father and I were kayaking and Rob came up the river, inverted, about 20 feet above the water, flying upside down past us. It was awesome. I love watching him fly. It hooked me.

Q: What type of piloting career do you want?

A: I really don't want to fly commercial airliners. I'd prefer to be an aeronautical engineer and go to college at either Purdue or Embry-Riddle (Aeronautical University). Or go into the Naval Academy or Air Force Academy and fly for them. If I do go into aviation engineering, I plan to keep flying recreationally, as a hobby. Later, I really want to fly for UPS. You get paid really well, and UPS won't be going out of business anytime soon.

Q: Is it true you teach a class on remote-controlled airplanes?

A: Every Tuesday I teach a course on building and flying RC planes for a class of 24 kids at the Science of Academy and Design in Nashua. We recently bought our first four RC airplanes for about $400 each, and next we're going to go fly them together at the field I fly at.

Q: Is it more difficult to fly a remote-controlled aircraft or an actual airplane?

A: The remote-controlled plane I'd say is a harder skill to pick up because you don't have the feeling of what the airplane is doing or wants to do under you. That said, in the military, drones are taking over. A lot of military recruiters are coming to these remote-control airplane events now and trying to recruit people to fly the drones.

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